


Temptation, Circa 1982

by mysid



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8723032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysid/pseuds/mysid
Summary: A man with little left to lose on a bridge at night,  but this isn't It's a Wonderful Life, and Crowley isn't Clarence.  Aziraphale didn't usually get so testy about Crowley just doing his job, but Crowley didn't usually tempt someone Aziraphale knew personally—not recently at least.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale belong to Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman; the young man belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Crowley had already driven across the old stone bridge one time this evening while on his way to a fundraising dinner for the East Bournemouth Ladies' Charity Scheme,(1) but on his return trip, he chose to park the Bentley and walk across. The water here was deceptively smooth, black silk. Only an almost imperceptible ripple hinted at the speed with which the water rushed past the supporting pillars.

He rather enjoyed strolling across bridges at night. One could usually expect to find someone open to a bit of temptation. A happy couple, deeply in love, strolling hand in hand—incite them with an extra dollop of lust. Soon they'll be dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and all the stresses on their lives that it causes. A not-so-happy couple, making awkward small talk while wondering how to salvage their relationship—give her an appraising look and a smile to remind her that other men still find her attractive. Soon she'll give up on him and begin a futile search for someone better. Crowley's favourites were the potential suicides, staring down into the inky water while wondering if disappearing into the blackness is the solution to their pain.

There was a time, when the world was younger and much less crowded, that Crowley would have considered simply encouraging a suicide to be a good night's work. One more soul condemned for all eternity was a worthy end in itself. Now however, Crowley had learned to look at the big picture, to try and get the maximum impact out of his machinations. A middle-aged man who had been laid-off from the only job he'd ever known and who wondered how he was going to support his family—it was easy enough to encourage him to take his family with him. A teenager who couldn't bear the stresses of adolescence any longer—he followed up with her classmates and encouraged several to follow her example like lemmings into the sea.

The young man on the bridge tonight watched Crowley warily for a few moments before returning his gaze to the deceptively smooth black water. This, Crowley knew from experience, could either be a sign that the man was very close to going over the railing or still quite undecided. If he had made up his mind to go through with it—and was only awaiting the courage to climb over the stone wall—his wariness arose from fear that Crowley might try to stop him. If, on the other hand, he was wary that Crowley meant him harm, he was undoubtedly still clinging to his life—no matter how miserable it was.

And so, Crowley knew that he had two tasks before him: determine how much of a push it would take to get the young man to climb over the railing, and if it wouldn't take too much of a push, determine how best to exploit this vulnerability for maximum impact.

"Do you have a light?" Crowley asked as an opening gambit. He took his silver cigarette case from the inside pocket of his coat.(2) "I seem to have misplaced my lighter."

The young man stared at the cigarettes in the open case for a long moment before shaking his head. Crowley could recognize a covetous look in his sleep. The young man had obviously once been a smoker and still desired cigarettes, but if he did not carry matches or a lighter, he had probably given them up. This did not bode well. A man who resisted the temptation of slow death by nicotine poisoning might not yield to the temptation of a quick death by drowning.

Crowley patted his own pockets before "finding" the matching silver lighter. "Always misplacing the damn thing. Would you care for a fag now that I can light it?"

"Couldn't hurt, I suppose," the young man said with a wry smile. Crowley smiled back, encouraged by the subtext of the morbid joke. He extended the cigarette case, but the young man shook his head. "Would you mind lighting it for me?"

Crowley acquiesced and lit two together, a trick he hadn't used since it fell out of fashion a mere decade earlier. He glanced down and saw that the man had his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. Perhaps he had made this unusual request because his hands were shaking with pre-suicide nerves. But, no; the hand with which he took the offered lit cigarette seemed quite steady.

The man took a deep drag and closed his eyes while holding the smoke in his lungs. Crowley watched in amused fascination. He never ceased to marvel at the ways humans found to destroy themselves.

"Addicted to poison," the young man said in an eerie echo of Crowley's own thoughts. "Yet another thing I can thank Sirius for."

Crowley found it oddly disconcerting watching a human speak while smoke leaked from his mouth and nose.

"Sirius?" Crowley asked with feigned disinterest. He rather doubted that the name would have come up if it weren't at the forefront of the young man's thoughts, and anything at the forefront of someone's thoughts while contemplating suicide was of great interest to Crowley.

"A former friend," the young man said lightly. "He's the one who started me on these bloody things." The man took one more deep drag and then flicked the unfinished cigarette away into the dark water. "I never could say 'no' to him."

"You must have said 'no' sometime." At a sharp look from the young man, Crowley continued, "You did say _former_ friend."

"He's dead," the man said with a fierce finality that suggested that he wouldn't waste any tears mourning his former friend.

Crowley was about to ask what Sirius had done to have earned such hatred—and thereby reopen any partially healed wounds, but the young man's demeanour suddenly changed. He leaned back against the stone wall with practiced nonchalance and gave Crowley an appraising look from head to toe.

"What do you really want?" he asked. "You didn't really need a light; you didn't even really want to smoke." He gestured toward the smouldering cigarette in Crowley's hand. After the initial drag to light it, he'd completely forgotten to feign an interest in it. 

"So you must have an ulterior motive in approaching me. I must admit, you're good-looking enough that in other circumstances I'd probably do you for free," the young man continued, "but in my current circumstances, I can't even afford to buy my own fags, and you can obviously afford to pay. Twenty quid. Your car, or do you have somewhere else in mind?"

This wasn't the result Crowley had been hoping for, but assisting someone to debase himself for money wasn't exactly a wasted evening either—and lust was such a lovely vice to indulge in. He began to lead the way back toward the alley closest to where he'd parked the Bentley.

"Twenty quid? That's a bit steep don't you think?"

"Supply and demand. You can have whatever you want here and now at my price or you can drive up to London and find some strung out kid who'll let you fuck him for less."

 

(1) Crowley had attended the fundraising dinner of the East Bournemouth Ladies' Charity Scheme with the intention of introducing the treasurer, the widow of a bank president, to a very charming, very handsome, and _very_ avaricious young man of his acquaintance. Her embezzlement would eventually total in excess of 8,500 pounds, bankrupting the Scheme and leaving the children of East Bournemouth without their long-promised after-school activity centre. Crowley would count each and every future juvenile delinquent in East Bournemouth as his success stories. 

(2) Crowley did not enjoy smoking for its own sake; the acrid taste of burning things reminded him a bit too vividly of what awaited him when his assignment on Earth came to its inevitable end. He did, however, enjoy smoking in order to tempt the former smokers around him back into the deadly addiction.

* * * * *

Crowley hummed along with Freddie Mercury as he drove toward the angel's bookstore. He was in a particularly good mood this morning—the combination of his successful matchmaking at the fundraising dinner and then being on the receiving end of a very skilful blowjob—and a mood this good definitely called for lunch at the Ritz with his favourite angel. 

He planned to work his final bad deed of the evening into the conversation over the first course. Aziraphale always blushed an adorable shade of pink when Crowley discussed his sexual conquests. Of course, he would twist the story a bit; he'd turn it around so that he had propositioned the young man instead of the other way around. He did have a reputation as tempter to maintain. It had been, Crowley reflected, a far better outcome for the evening than a mere suicide. Suicides didn't make for entertaining conversation; they left Aziraphale far too sad to hold up his end.

The paint which indicated a no-parking zone melted away as Crowley pulled into his customary parking space in front of the shop.(3) He noted the "Open" sign hanging on the shop door, not that the far more common "Closed" sign had ever kept him out.

"Close up shop, Angel!" Crowley called out as he entered the shop. "I'm taking you to lunch."

"Shh!" Aziraphale hissed as he came out from between two bookcases. "I have a customer," he whispered.

"A customer? How awful for you. Do you want me to get rid of him?"

Aziraphale did look the slightest bit tempted by the offer, but he said, "Of course not. Besides, this one isn't so bad; he never buys anything."

He sounded like Aziraphale's ideal customer—hanging around the shop to give the impression that it really _was_ a shop, but never forcing Aziraphale to part with his beloved books. Nevertheless, this ideal customer was ruining Crowley's plans. He sprawled in one of the easy chairs he'd miracled on a previous visit and looked pointedly at his watch.

"You have a quarter of an hour to get rid of him your way, or I will—my way."

The threat proved unnecessary for the customer, wearing an appalling maroon jumper, was already striding toward the counter. He looked different in the warmer light of day, less washed out, less desperate, but still unmistakably the young man Crowley had found on a bridge last night.

"I won't linger today, Mr. Fell," the young man said with a smile for the shopkeeper, "since you have lunch plans, but I will be buying something."

Aziraphale accepted both the book and the crumpled bill atop it with a pained expression. It was a smaller denomination than the twenty Crowley had paid him last night; this wasn't his first purchase since rising off his knees in the dark alley.

"Buying a book?" Crowley asked with amusement. "And here I thought my money would find its way into your arm. Or perhaps that's where the other ten went?" He enjoyed seeing the young man's back stiffen as he placed the voice.

The young man hesitated before turning to face Crowley. He held his chin high and said calmly, "Into my stomach actually; I bought some food." The young man's facade of pride lasted only until he turned back to Aziraphale to accept his change; he wouldn't look Aziraphale in the eye.

"You two know each other?" Aziraphale asked.

"Yes, we did _know_ each other, last night," Crowley said with a smirk. Aziraphale stared at him with wide eyes before looking back at the human with concern.

"Are you all right?" the angel asked.

"Fine," the young man murmured as he snatched the dearly purchased book off the counter and headed for the door.

Crowley knew that after this the young man would never dare come back to Aziraphale's bookstore. Aziraphale seemed to realize it too for he called after him, "Wait! When you finish that book, bring it back if you want, and I'll give you your money back."

"I don't need charity," the young man said as he paused with the door partially open.

"It's not charity," Aziraphale insisted. "Look at the sign on the door; I _buy_ and sell books. I'll just be buying it back from you."

The young man left without answering.

"And what's so bad about charity anyway?" the angel asked as the door swung closed. "And you!" he said angrily as he rounded on Crowley.

Crowley held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Easy, Aziraphale. I was just doing my job, and not very well, apparently."

"What do you mean?" Aziraphale asked as he folded his arms, but he continued to glare angrily. Crowley reflected that Aziraphale didn't usually get so testy about Crowley just doing his job, but Crowley didn't usually tempt someone Aziraphale knew personally—not recently at least.

"When I met him last night, I'm reasonably sure he was close to committing suicide, but thanks to my interference, he now has a full belly, a book to savour, and a new profession to keep him supplied with both food and books. All in all, I may have accidentally done your job."

"By tempting him into prostitution?" Aziraphale asked incredulously. 

"Well, to tell the truth, I doubt he's all _that_ new to the 'world's oldest profession.' Isn't that a stupid name for it?" Crowley asked as he gestured the store's sign to 'Closed'. "We both know it took several generations before that one came along."

"And you were responsible for _that_ time too," Aziraphale said with a frown, but it was his standard, "I can't approve of what you did" frown. Crowley knew then that he would have his luncheon companion after all.

"He's never going to come back here, is he? He was ashamed to look me in the eye," Aziraphale said as he followed Crowley out to the street and locked the shop door.

Privately, Crowley agreed, but he merely said, "Never is a long time, even for a human. You may get a second chance to help him." He refrained from pointing out that Aziraphale had already had numerous chances to help his favourite customer and had failed to take the opportunity. The words did occur to him—thousands of years of exploiting vulnerabilities made one quite aware of them. He assured himself that he was not neglecting the opportunity out of sympathy for the angel, but merely in self-interest. After all, a miserable luncheon companion made for a most unpleasant meal.(4)

 

(3) The no-parking markings would reappear as soon as the Bentley pulled away from the kerb, of course. Crowley found them quite useful for keeping his spot free. That they frustrated easily annoyed humans was an added benefit.

(4) Lunch lasted for four courses and two bottles of wine. However, Crowley never did turn the conversation to the young man's sexual talents as he had originally planned.

 

_\--written January 2007_


End file.
